| Episodes |
Testing the Expert
Annette Gordon-Reed's book is conveniently divided into relatively small chunks. In almost all chunks she clearly identifies a point or an issue (and several times more than one) in the controversy and then proceeds to analyze it in lawyerly fashion to determine its validity or relevance.
Assign each student one chunk or a cluster of chunks such as shown below on which to focus in order to analyze the analyzer.
Use the following documents on the Madison Hemings and James Callender chapters as models for student analyses. Have them identify a point, a claim, an issue, or what may be best called a "charge" or a "tactic" used by Jefferson defenders and then clearly sketch out Gordon-Reed's response. The idea is to isolate and focus in order to investigate.
Have students use these outline-like documents as the basis for essays evaluating the validity or relevance of Gordon-Reed's judgments. Where is she strong, where weak, and why?
The "Madison Hemings" chapter:
Motive: S. F. Wetmore's and Madison Hemings's (8-16)
Madison Hemings's Motive: The Views of John C. Miller and Andrew Burstein (17-19)
It Just Does Not Sound Right (19-22)
The Way He Tells the Story (23-25)
Beverley Hemings (25-26)
Harriet Hemings (26-27)
Edmund Bacon, Thomas Jefferson, and Harriett Hemings (27-29)
The Context (29-31)
Why Jefferson Freed Harriet Hemings: The Defenders Explain (31-34)
The Double Standard with Respect to Evidence (34-38)
Madison Hemings and Eston Hemings (38-43)
Madison Hemings on Thomas Jefferson (43-45)
Madison Hemings on Harriet Hemings (45-46)
Dumas Malone Weighs the Evidence (46-48)
Popular Biographies and Madison Hemings in the 1990s (48-51)
From Jefferson to the Hemingses (51-53)
An Alternative Explanation (53-58)
Conclusion (58)
The "James Callender" chapter:
Introduction (59-66)
Was There a Tom Hemings (67-70)
Tom Hemings Existed: An Argument (70-71)
Tom Hemings Did Not Exist: An Argument (71-75)
Bad Person Equals Bad Story (75-77)
Conclusion (77)
"The Randolphs and the Carrs" chapter:
How the Carr Brothers Came into the Picture (79-80)
Henry Randall (80-81)
Merrill Peterson and Henry Randall (81-84)
Assessing the Errors (84-86)
Jefferson's Grandchildren Versus Madison Hemings (87-92)
Edmund Bacon and the Grandchildren's Claim (92-93)
Motivations All Around (93-94)
Slave Narratives and Slave Masters (94-96)
James Parton (96-97)
Two Kinds of Oral History (97-98)
The Evidence That Is Needed (98-103)
Conclusion (103-4)
The "Thomas Jefferson" chapter:
Jefferson the Gentleman and the Problem of Miscegenation (108-11)
The Character Defense at All Costs (111-13)
Historians and the Problem of Miscegenation (113-14)
A Fantasy of the 70s (114-16)
Presentism to a Different End (116-19)
Jefferson and His "very Snow-broth" Blood (120-22)
Jefferson's Head and Heart (122-27) (will need access to the essay)
The Father and the Grandfather (127-33)
Jefferson the Racist (133-37)
Racists versus Racists (137-41)
The "Sally Hemings" chapter:
Who Was Sally Hemings? (160-66)
Mammy Love versus Romantic Love (166-69)
Gary Wills on Jefferson and Hemings (169-72)
Douglass Adair and Maria Cosway versus Sally Hemings (185-91) (will need access to Adair's essay)
The Children's Names (196-201)
Why Sally Hemings's Children Went Free --> Sally's Contract (201-3)
Would Thomas Jefferson Have Failed to Free Sally Hemings? (206-9)
